"I
have called you here on a matter of some delicacy," Rukia's
honoured elder brother said, refilling her cup of tea.

Rukia
promptly panicked. Which of her many deliquencies had come to light?
Did they know about the incident with Ukitake-taichou and the
sword-polishing? Or the shoujo manga? Or the gothloli dresses she'd
commissioned from Ishida? "Yes, honoured elder brother,"
she murmured, and tried not to tremble too obviously.

"About
. . . a relationship," he continued.

It couldn't be her
relationship with Ichigo. She kicked Ichigo in the head often enough
to satisfy even the most rigid upholder of aristocratic priviledge.

Wait. Could he have arranged a marriage for her?

"Yes,
honoured elder brother?" she whimpered.

"I require
your advice," her honoured elder brother said coldly, his eyes
fixed on a spot over her right shoulder. "Regarding the handling
of Abarai Renji."

Rukia's worldview took an abrupt one
hundred and eighty degree turn. She'd thought that her honoured elder
brother knew precisely how to handle Renji. Slap him round the head
whenever he did something stupid, and give him a candy when he did
something clever. It had always worked for her, anyhow, and she'd
never yet had to give him a candy.

"He fails to take
suggestions," her honoured elder brother said, a note of
exasperation entering his voice. "I have made them. He has not
responded to them. Rukia, you are closer -- that is, your
relationship with him is on a different level to mine. Has he not yet
recovered from the battles during the ryoka affair? Could there have
been brain damage?"

"Specific suggestions," her honoured
elder brother said. "Though I flatter myself that I have used
all proper forms of courtesy and subtlety in extending them. I would
not wish to embarrass him by using the style and tone of his
unfortunate origins."

"Ah." Rukia took a sip of
her tea while trying to think of what to say and how to say it.
"Might your younger sister possibly see an example of these
specific suggestions? You will understand that naturally she has no
personal experience of such things."

"Of course
not," her honoured elder brother agreed in a way that suggested
he had never heard about Shiba Kaien's lessons in You're A Cute
Little Thing, Rukia, So Here's The Stuff That Men Will Try To Tell
You To Get Into Your Pants, or his wife's follow-up course in And
Here's How To Handle It If You Want To Let Them. He reached behind
him, and passed across a set of folded notes.

"However,"
she continued, "I think the grace and fluidity of your eloquence
may possibly have confused Renji, since grace and fluidity and
eloquence are not his strongest points. For instance, this one --"
She held up one note. "When you refer to a desire to 'raid the
stored jewel-box of your eyes till their deep obsidian is mirrored
with the panting scarlet of your shivering hair', or to 'embrace your
temple spire of lust until your deep release echoes the manly passion
of my fervent soul', it is conceivable that these flowers of speech
were wasted on him."

Her honoured elder brother looked
down his nose at her. "Those phrases come from the highest
poetical canon. Nothing could be more seemly."

"No,
honoured elder brother," Rukia agreed docilely. "And as to
this one, when you say that 'each hour of longing will be an
eternity, each eternity an age, and each age a kalpa, until at last
you lie within the hot and heaving hollow of my arms, laving my
fervid body with the sweet magic of your untutored tongue, spending
your essence upon the silk sheets', I suspect that he failed to
understand the symmetry of your rhetoric."

"Indeed,"
her honoured elder brother replied, looking suddenly weary. "He
inquired whether I meant that he had been late for a staff
meeting."

Her honoured elder brother waved a hand.
"That was indeed why I invited you to take tea with me."

"It
seems to your younger sister that you have two possible choices,
honoured elder brother." Rukia folded her hands. "The first
choice is that you have Renji tutored in poetic simile and metaphor.
The problem with this choice is that it might take several
years."

"And the second choice?"

Rukia
lowered her eyes modestly. "I believe that if you truly wish to
convey your intentions to him, honoured elder brother, then you
should seize him by his muscular shoulders, strip the clothing from
his willowy body until his marble-white skin and his flowing tattoos
are bathed in lamplight, then place your lips against his and thrust
your tongue into his mouth, while at the same time clasping him
firmly in your arms and agitating your body vigorously against his,
running your fingers through his flowing ruby locks, pressing your
lower parts against his lower parts, and . . ."

She was
aware of a certain lowering of the metaphorical temperature on the
other side of the tea set.

"Of course, honoured elder
brother," she said with a light and unconvincing laugh, "you
will appreciate that all of this is purely in the realm of
speculation, and that your maidenly younger sister is quite innocent
of all such things. Especially with Abarai Renji."

"She'd
better be," her honoured elder brother muttered.

Rukia
kept her eyes down. It was much safer than looking up.

Her
honoured elder brother pondered, and finally came to a decision.
"Thank you for your advice, Rukia. I appreciate your crude,
simplistic attempts to help me. Your sympathy is well-meant, even if
your standards of poetic criticism require improvement."